Why are some Catholics so afraid of change?

The Rev. James Martin

Updated 9:54 AM ET, Tue October 27, 2015

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Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, left, reads aloud words engraved on a pen as he meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Friday, December 16. The words "The bullets have written our past, education will write our future" are engraved on the pen, made from a recycled bullet once used in the civil war between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The pen was later used to sign the peace agreements between the parties earlier this year. Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the region's longest-running conflict, presented Pope Francis with the pen.

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Pope Francis accepts a letter from a child he visited at a pediatric hospital in Rome on Thursday, December 15.

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Pope Francis poses with members of the International Catholic Rural Association at the Vatican on Saturday, December 10.

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Pope Francis salutes the faithful upon his arrival in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for the Special Jubilee Papal Audience on Saturday, October 22.

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Pope Francis looks on with joy as he releases a dove as a symbol of peace during a meeting with the Assyrian Chaldean community at the Catholic Chaldean Church of St. Simon Bar Sabbae in Tbilisi, Georgia, on September 30.

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Pope Francis passes the main entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former concentration camp in Poland, on Friday, July 29. The Pope was there to pay tribute to those who died in the Holocaust.

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Pope Francis looks on as Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II celebrates the Divine Liturgy at the Apostolic Cathedral in Etchmiadzin, outside Yerevan, Armenia, on June 26.

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Pope Francis arrives to celebrate an extraordinary Jubilee Audience as part of ongoing celebrations of the Holy Year of Mercy in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on May 14.

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Pope Francis hugs a child at the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos on Saturday, April 16. Pope Francis received an emotional welcome on the island during a visit showing solidarity with migrants fleeing war and poverty.

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Pope Francis confesses in St. Peter's Basilica during the Vatican's Penitential Celebration on Friday, March 4.

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Pope Francis tries on a traditional sombrero he received as a gift from a Mexican journalist on Friday, February 12, 2016, aboard a flight from Rome to Havana, Cuba. The voyage kicked off his weeklong trip to Mexico. With his penchant for crowd-pleasing and spontaneous acts of compassion, Pope Francis has earned high praise from fellow Catholics and others since he succeeded Pope Benedict XVI in March 2013.

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Pope Francis arrives for his visit with prisoners in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on Friday, July 10, 2015. The Pope emphasized the plight of the poor during his eight-day tour of South America, which also included stops in Ecuador and Paraguay.

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Bolivian President Evo Morales presents the Pope with a gift of a crucifix carved into a wooden hammer and sickle -- the Communist symbol uniting laborers and peasants -- in La Paz, Bolivia, on Wednesday, July 8, 2015.

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Pope Francis greets a crowd of Italian Catholic boy scouts and girl guides at St. Peter's Square on Saturday, June 13, 2015.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, meets Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, June 10, 2015. The Pope gave Putin a medallion depicting the angel of peace, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said. The Vatican called it "an invitation to build a world of solidarity and peace founded on justice." Lombardi said the pontiff and President talked for 50 minutes about the crisis in Ukraine and violence in Iraq and Syria.

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Pope Francis meets with Cuban President Raul Castro at the Vatican on Sunday, May 10, 2015. Castro thanked the Pope for his role in brokering the rapprochement between Havana and Washington.

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The Pope prays face down on the floor of St. Peter's Basilica during Good Friday celebrations at the Vatican on Friday, April 3, 2015.

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Pope Francis touches a child's face as he arrives for a meeting at the Vatican on Friday, March 6, 2015.

The Pope attends Christmas Eve Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City in December 2014.

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Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I address the faithful in Istanbul on Sunday, November 30, 2014.

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Pope Francis speaks during the feast-day Mass while on a one-day trip to Italy's Calabria region in June 2014. The Pope spoke out against the Mafia's "adoration of evil and contempt for the common good," and declared that "Mafiosi are excommunicated, not in communion with God."

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Pope Francis prays next to a rabbi at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City in May 2014. The Pope went on a three-day trip to the Holy Land, and he was accompanied by Jewish and Muslim leaders from his home country of Argentina.

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The Pope meets the faithful as he visits the Roman Parish of San Gregorio Magno in April 2014.

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Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, have an audience with the Pope during their one-day visit to Rome in April 2014.

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Francis speaks with US President Barack Obama at the Vatican in March 2014.

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The Pope blesses the altar at Rome's Basilica of Santa Sabina as he celebrates Mass on Ash Wednesday in March 2014.

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Daniele De Sanctis, a 19-month-old dressed as the pope, is handed to Francis as the pontiff is driven through the crowd in St. Peter's Square in February 2014.

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Wind blows the papal skullcap off Pope Francis' head in February 2014.

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A lamb is placed around Francis' neck in January 2014 as he visits a living nativity scene staged at a church on the outskirts of Rome.

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Pope Francis meets with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the Vatican in December 2013. Benedict surprised the world by resigning "because of advanced age." It was the first time a pope has stepped down in nearly 600 years.

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Pope Francis marked his 77th birthday in December 2013 by hosting homeless men at a Mass and a meal at the Vatican. One of the men brought his dog.

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Pope Francis embraced Vinicio Riva, a disfigured man who suffers from a non-infectious genetic disease, during a public audience at the Vatican in November 2013. Riva then buried his head in the Pope's chest.

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Pope Francis jokes in November 2013 with members of the Rainbow Association Marco Iagulli Onlus, which uses clown therapy in hospitals, nursing homes and orphanages.

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A young boy hugs Francis as he delivers a speech in St. Peter's Square in October 2013. The boy, part of a group of children sitting around the stage, played around the Pope as the Pope continued his speech and occasionally patted the boy's head.

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Francis has eschewed fancy cars. Here, Father Don Renzo Zocca, second from right, offers his white Renault 4L to the Pope during a meeting at the Vatican in September 2013.

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Francis has his picture taken inside St. Peter's Basilica with youths who came to Rome for a pilgrimage in August 2013.

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During an impromptu news conference in July 2013, while on a plane from Brazil to Rome, the Pope said about gay priests, "Who am I to judge?" Many saw the move as the opening of a more tolerant era in the Catholic Church.

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Crowds swarm the Pope as he makes his way through World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in July 2013. According to the Vatican, 1 million people turned out to see the Pope.

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Francis frees a dove in May 2013 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.

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Francis embraces a young boy with cerebral palsy in March 2013 -- a gesture that many took as a heartwarming token of the Pope's self-stated desire to "be close to the people."

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The Pope washes the feet of juvenile offenders, including Muslim women, as part of Holy Thursday rituals in March 2013. The act commemorates Jesus' washing of the Apostles' feet during the Last Supper.

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Francis stands at the reception desk of the Domus Internationalis Paulus VI residence on March 14, 2013, where he paid the bill for his stay during the conclave that would elect him leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

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Francis, formerly known as Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was elected the Roman Catholic Church's 266th Pope in March 2013. The first pontiff from Latin America was also the first to take the name Francis.

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The Rev. James Martin is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America and author of the new novel "The Abbey." The views expressed in this column belong to Martin.

Author Father James Martin

(CNN)The Synod on the Family, the gathering of bishops from around the world that just concluded, changed no Catholic doctrine. None.

But you wouldn't know that from the fierce reactions the synod evoked. Even the possibility that the church might deal more openly with, for example, divorced and remarried Catholics or the LGBT community, sent some Catholics into a near frenzy.

It seemed out of proportion to the synod's discussions as well as the final document, a rather workaday overview of issues related to the family. The final report did not, for example, say that divorced and remarried could return to Communion. Instead it talked about possible avenues of reconciliation that already existed. Nor did it approve same-sex marriage. Instead it spoke of respecting LGBT Catholics.

Overall, the document stressed two concepts: "accompaniment" and "discernment." The church must accompany families in the complexity of their lives and use discernment, a form of prayerful decision-making, to help people arrive at good decisions based on church teaching.

The final document is not even the final word. Pope Francis will most likely issue his own document within a few months, summing up the synod's findings and perhaps moving the discussion farther.

But even the hint of change prompted outrage -- which was directed not only at Pope Francis, but also the bishops at the synod, Catholic commentators, and from time to time, me. At times, the level of sheer spite was astounding.

Why?

First, let's give the benefit of the doubt to people upset by Pope Francis and some of the synod's discussions.

Those disturbed by the possibility of change are usually devout Catholics who believe that the law is an important part of Catholic tradition. And it is. Make no mistake: Jesus himself said he came to "fulfill the law." Many of the church's rules flow directly from the Gospels. Just consider divorce, the synod topic that captured much of the attention in the West. It is unequivocally stated by Jesus to be wrong.

Laws also are part of tradition, which Catholics believe is guided by the Holy Spirit. Even if certain rules do not come from the lips of Jesus, but rather from popes or other councils like Vatican II, they are considered to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. Thus, another reason to oppose change: Why would we change something that either comes from Jesus or is safeguarded by the Holy Spirit?

For if you're a devout Catholic who believes in the guidance of the Spirit, then you should also trust that the same Spirit is guiding Pope Francis and the synod. Sadly, in some corners that trust seems to have evaporated after the Pope's election, to be replaced with doubt, suspicion and anger.

Again why?

First, Catholics today often conflate dogma, doctrine and practice.

In the most basic (and simplified) theological terms dogma refers to our core beliefs. For example, beliefs like the Resurrection: That's foundational.

Doctrine encompasses the overall teachings of the church. For example, the teaching on birth control. Every doctrine is important, but not every doctrine is dogma. Finally, pastoral practice refers to how those doctrines are applied in real life. For example, how does a priest counsel a person who uses birth control?

In the past few decades, we have seen these three categories collapsed together, at least in the popular Catholic imagination. It is as if every teaching is seen as dogma. And this has had disastrous effects. Because a change in one is seen as an attack on everything.

In this view, changing the way that the church treats divorced and remarried Catholics is not simply an attack on pastoral practice, but on doctrine and perhaps even dogma. This is not to diminish important teachings, but rather to put them in their perspective.

Traditionally, we believe in a "hierarchy of truths," in which some teachings are simply more important than others. Obviously, the Resurrection is more important than what your pastor says about a local political candidate. The collapse of these three categories, then, means that even the hint of change is a threat. Thus some of the anger.

Second, change itself may be difficult for some Catholics because it threaten one's idea of a stable church. Yet the church has always changed. Not in its essentials, but in some important practices, as it responds to what Jesus called the "signs of the times."

Think of the changes wrought by the Second Vatican Council: The church's relations with the Jewish people changed utterly. The translation of the Mass from the Latin into vernacular languages changed the way we worship. Both were immense changes -- and necessary changes.

Third, a darker reason for the anger: a crushing sense of legalism of the kind that Jesus warned against. Sadly, I see this evident in our church, and it is ironic to find this in those who hew to the Gospels because this is one of the clearest things that Jesus opposed: "You load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them!" he said in the Gospel of Luke.

As the Pope said in his closing remarks to the synod, the person who truly follows the doctrine is not the one who follows the letter of the law, but its spirit.

Fourth, even darker reasons for the anger: a hatred of LGBT Catholics that masks itself as a concern for their souls, a desire to shut out divorced and remarried because they are "sinful" and should be excluded from the church's communion, and a self-righteousness and arrogance that closes one off to the need for mercy. Also, a mere dislike of change because it threatens the black-and-white worldview.

But change began in the church almost as soon as the church began. St. Paul prevailed over St. Peter -- the "rock" upon which Jesus built his church -- over the question of whether the non-circumcised could be accepted into the faith. Without change early on, the church would have never moved beyond the Jewish community. St. Paul understood the need for change, even if it went against some cherished practices.

So did Jesus. He did not hesitate to bend or even set aside the rules if it meant applying more mercy. When he healed an infirm woman, painfully stooped over from arthritis or scoliosis, in the Gospel of Luke, on the Sabbath, he was critiqued for not following the rules. In response, he excoriates those who sought to lock him into unchanging legalisms: "Hypocrites!"

Fear of change holds the church back. And it does something worse. It removes love from the equation. In the past few weeks I have seen this fear lead to suspicion, mistrust and hate. And at the heart of this, I believe, is fear.

As St. Paul said, perfect love drives out fear. But perfect fear drives out love.